Stinnie v. Holcomb

• Decision Date: 27 June 2022
• Docket Number: 21-1756
• Parties: DAMIAN STINNIE; MELISSA ADAMS; ADRAINNE JOHNSON; WILLIEST BANDY; BRIANNA MORGAN, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. RICHARD D. HOLCOMB, in his official capacity as the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Defendant-Appellee. AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF VIRGINIA, ET AL, Amicus Supporting Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

DAMIAN STINNIE; MELISSA ADAMS; ADRAINNE JOHNSON; WILLIEST BANDY; BRIANNA MORGAN, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. RICHARD D. HOLCOMB, in his official capacity as the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Defendant-Appellee.

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF VIRGINIA, ET AL, Amicus Supporting Appellant.

No. 21-1756

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit

June 27, 2022

Argued: May 4, 2022

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Charlottesville. Norman K. Moon Senior District Judge. (3:16-cv-00044-NKM-JCH)

ARGUED:

Tennille Jo Checkovich, SMITHFIELD FOODS, INC., Smithfield Virginia, for Appellants.

Trevor Stephen Cox, HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH, LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Jonathan T. Blank, Benjamin P. Abel, Charlottesville, Virginia, John J. Woolard, MCGUIREWOODS LLP, Richmond, Virginia; Angela A. Ciolfi, Charlottesville, Virginia, Patrick Levy-Lavelle, LEGAL AID JUSTICE CENTER, Richmond, Virginia; Leslie Kendrick, Charlottesville, Virginia; Michael Stark, Smithfield, Virginia, for Appellants.

Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, Donald D. Anderson, Deputy Attorney General, Julie M. Whitlock, Senior Assistant Attorney General &Transportation Section Chief, Janet W. Baugh, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christian A. Parrish, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia; Maya M. Eckstein, David M. Parker, HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Theodore A. Howard, WILEY REIN LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae.

Before THACKER, HARRIS, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

THACKER, CIRCUIT JUDGE

This fee dispute arises from a putative class-action challenge to a now-repealed Virginia statute that triggered the automatic suspension of the driver's licenses of Damian Stinnie, Demetrice Moore, Robert Taylor, Neil Russo (collectively, "Appellants"), and numerous other Virginia residents for nonpayment of court costs and fines. After Appellants obtained a preliminary injunction, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law repealing the challenged statute. Appellants stipulated that dismissal of the underlying lawsuit was therefore appropriate but claimed that they were nonetheless entitled to attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 because they secured the preliminary injunction.

The district court denied Appellants' petition for attorney's fees, citing our decision in Smyth ex rel. Smyth v. Rivero, 282 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2002), wherein we held that preliminary injunctions do not confer the requisite "prevailing party" status required for an award of fees pursuant to § 1988. On appeal, Appellants contend that Smyth is not controlling because it is untenable with subsequent Supreme Court decisions.

We conclude Smyth remains the law of this circuit. And, pursuant to Smyth, Appellants are not prevailing parties. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of their petition for attorney's fees and litigation expenses.

I.

In 2016, Appellants initiated a civil action against Richard Holcomb (the "Commissioner") in his official capacity as the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, challenging the constitutionality of Virginia Code § 46.2-395. The now-repealed statute provided, in relevant part:

(B) . . . [W]hen any person is convicted of any violation of the law of the Commonwealth or of the United States or of any valid local ordinance and fails or refuses to provide for immediate payment in full of any fine, costs, forfeitures, restitution, or penalty lawfully assessed against him, or fails to make deferred payments or installment payments as ordered by the court, the court shall forthwith suspend the person's privilege to drive a motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth . . .

(C) Before transmitting to the Commissioner a record of the person's failure or refusal to pay all or part of any fine, costs, forfeiture, restitution, or penalty . . . the clerk of the court that convicted the person shall provide or cause to be sent to the person written notice of the suspension of his license or privilege to drive a motor vehicle in Virginia, effective 30 days from the date of conviction, if the fine, costs, forfeiture, restitution, or penalty is not paid prior to the effective date of the suspension as stated on the notice ....

Stinnie v. Holcomb, 734 Fed.Appx. 858, 860 (4th Cir. 2018) (quoting Va. Code § 46.2-395 (repealed 2020)). In their complaint, Appellants claimed that the Commissioner enforced § 46.2-395 in a manner that violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses by "unfairly punish[ing] them for being poor." Id. at 680 (internal quotation marks omitted).^[1] In December 2018, the district court issued a detailed memorandum opinion granting Appellants a preliminary injunction. See generally Stinnie v. Holcomb, 355 F.Supp.3d 514 (W.D. Va. 2018).

As is relevant here, the district court applied the four-part test from Winter v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008), and concluded that Appellants "demonstrate[d] a likelihood of success on their claim that § 46.2-395 violate[d] procedural due process" because "§ 46.2-395, on its face, [did] not provide a meaningful opportunity to be heard regarding license suspension." Id. at 531. Accordingly, the district court preliminarily enjoined the Commissioner from enforcing § 46.2-395 against Appellants.

Three months later, in March 2019, former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam proposed Budget Amendment No. 33, which suspended the enforcement of § 46.2-395 going forward and required the Commissioner to reinstate, without fees, driving privileges for persons whose licenses were previously revoked pursuant to the statute. Press Release, Va. Off. of the Governor, Governor Northam Announces Budget Amend. To Eliminate Driver's License Suspensions for Nonpayment of Ct. Fines &Costs (Mar. 26, 2019), https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/all-releases/2019/march/headline-839710-en.html. The Virginia General Assembly passed the Amendment "by votes of 70 to 29 in the House and 30 to 8 in the Senate." Stinnie v. Holcomb, 396 F.Supp.3d 653, 658 (W.D. Va. 2019). Thereafter, upon motion from the Commissioner and over Appellants' objections, the district court stayed the proceedings pending the 2020 session of Virginia's General Assembly. See id. at 659-60. The district court reasoned that staying the "long, contentious, and no doubt costly" litigation was appropriate because the General Assembly's support of the Budget Amendment "indicate[d] political hostility toward[] § 46.2-395," and the Commissioner "testified that the process of drafting legislation to codify the Budget Amendment ha[d] begun." Id. at 658.

During its 2020 regular session, the Virginia General Assembly eliminated § 46.2395 from the Code of Virginia. Accordingly, in May 2020, the parties filed a stipulation of dismissal. In the stipulation, the parties expressly reserved any argument as to Appellants' entitlement to attorney's fees and expenses. Appellants then petitioned the district court for attorney's fees and expenses pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Appellants argued that the 2018 preliminary injunction conferred upon them "prevailing party" status, making them eligible for a discretionary award of fees and expenses.

The district court denied the petition. Specifically, the district court reasoned that pursuant to our decision in Smyth ex rel. Smyth v. Rivero, 282 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2002), Appellants cannot be prevailing parties and therefore are not eligible for an award of attorney's fees and expenses. In doing so, the district court rejected Appellants' argument that Smyth is untenable with the Supreme Court's decisions in Winter v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008) and Lefemine v. Wideman, 568 U.S. 1 (2012) (per curiam) and is no longer controlling law in the Fourth Circuit.

II.

We review de novo a district court's "prevailing party" determination. Grabarczyk v. Stein, 32 F.4th 301, 306 (4th Cir. 2022). "[I]t is well-settled that a panel of this court is bound by prior precedent from other panels in this circuit absent contrary law from an en banc or Supreme Court decision." United States v. Seigler, 990 F.3d 331, 336 n.6 (4th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also McMellon v. United States, 387 F.3d 329, 332 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc) ("A number of cases from this court have stated the basic principle that one panel cannot overrule a decision issued by another panel.").

Because our decision in Smyth is not untenable with any Supreme Court decisions, it is binding upon this panel and requires us to affirm the decision of the district court. United States v. Banks, 29 F.4th 168, 175 (4th Cir. 2022).

III.

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), the "prevailing party" in certain civil rights proceedings may recover attorney's fees. "The term 'prevailing party' is a legal term of art," Reyuzuddin v. Montgomery Cnty., 988 F.3d 794, 796 (4th Cir. 2021), which means a party that has "been awarded some relief by the court," Sky Cable, LLC v. DIRECTV, Inc., 23 F.4th 313, 317 (4th Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). The term "some relief" refers to "relief that creates the material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties necessary to permit an award of attorney's fees by modifying the defendant's behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff." Sky Cable, LLC, 23 F.4th at 317-18 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).

In Smyth, we explicitly held "the preliminary injunction entered by the district court does not satisfy the prevailing party...